Fred Maroun is a Canadian of Arab origin who lived in Lebanon until 1984, including during 10 years of civil war. Fred supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and he supports a liberal and democratic Middle East where all religions and nationalities, including Palestinians, can co-exist in peace with each other and with Israel. More blogs by Fred Maroun can be found at http://www.jpost.com/Blogger/Fred-Maroun and http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/fred-maroun/.

Friday, July 25, 2014

What do Israel’s critics really want?

Israel’s operation Protective Edge is
on its eighteenth day, and Israel’s critic are intensifying their demand that
Israel stop its operation. It is clear
to any reasonable observer, as Canadian columnist Michael Den Tandt wrote
recently (The simple question detractors can’t answer)
that “Hamas has put Israel in a position where it has no choice but to defend
its citizens”. So what do Israel’s
critics really want?

When pressed to give a reason, Israel’s
critics say that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is not acceptable and
Israeli civilians have suffered very few casualties. The implication is clearly that Israel should
simply grin and bear it. Israel should accept
daily missile attacks on its civilians with the high likelihood that a large number
of victims will ensue, possibly in a missile strike on Tel Aviv or other large urban
area. Israel should accept that its main
airport be threatened and that airlines suspend flights to it. Israel should accept the impact of such a situation
on the morale of its citizens and on its economy. This is what they are really saying. And this would not resolve the humanitarian
crisis for Palestinians because sooner or later fighting would have to resume
anyway.

But it doesn’t stop there. Hamas has an extensive set of tunnels to
allow it to smuggle weapons in and to allow it to infiltrate Israel’s civilian
population and commit extensive acts of terror.
If Israel does not destroy the tunnels, then it should expect more than
a daily shower of missiles on its cities.
It should also expect that heavily armed terrorists could attack its
schools, malls, and parks at any time of the day or night.

If presented with these facts, Israel’s
critics will admit that Hamas’ ethics aren’t spotless but then they retreat to
the claim that, as the cowardly Palestinian Authority likes to say, the real
root of the problem is Israel’s occupation.
Which occupation? Israel left
Gaza years ago and it even dismantled its settlements there, causing great pain
to many of its people.

Israel’s critics will then say that
even though Gaza isn’t technically occupied, it is not free to trade with the
outside due to Israel’s and Egypt’s blockades, and that this is causing great
hardship for the Palestinians in Gaza.
Yet, when Israel loosened its blockade of Gaza and allowed more
construction materials in, Hamas did not build school and hospitals; it built
tunnels for its terrorist activity. It
is blindingly obvious that Hamas uses any loosening of the blockade to arm
itself better for the next confrontation with Israel.

Israel’s critics will also mention
Israel’s occupation in the West Bank.
Does anyone really think that Hamas is building terror tunnels in Gaza
and launching missiles against Israel in order to free the West Bank? If that were true, Hamas would demand a two-state
solution as its condition for ending the war in Gaza. Instead its conditions are the release of convicted
criminals and the lifting of the blockade so that it can build more tunnels and
bring in more missiles and other long-range weapons. In addition, after leaving Gaza, statements
by various leading Israeli politicians indicate that Israel intended to follow
that up with an evacuation of the West Bank, and the only reason this did not
happen is because missile attacks from Gaza convinced Israelis that unilateral withdrawal
was not a palatable option.

It is extremely clear that Israel
cannot choose to stop the operation until Hamas is disabled at least
temporarily, and yet Israel’s critic are demanding Israel’s unconditional
surrender. As demonstrated here, we know
that those critics are not asking Israel’s surrender for the sake of
Palestinians or for the sake of peace, so the only alternative left is that
they agree with Hamas’ objective of destroying Israel. They agree with Hamas’ objective of killing
all the Jews in Israel and establishing an Islamist dictatorship in its
place. Israel’s critics are in fact in a
way worse than Hamas; Hamas at least has the courage to state what it really
wants.Note: This blog won first place in the category "Non-Council" at the site http://www.watcherofweasels.org/ on the week of August 1, 2014.

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About Me

Fred is a Canadian of Arab origin who supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He also supports a liberal and democratic Middle East where all religions and nationalities, including Palestine, can co-exist in peace with each other and with Israel, and where human rights are respected.